advanced building skins 14 | 15 June 2012 - lamp.tugraz.at - Graz ...

3 Further Dynamic Facades
Advanced Building Skins
Figure 5: Kiefer Technic, Detailed section
The office building at Hartenaugasse in Graz is a new building in an environment of classical
architecture, manor houses and villas, embedded in a rich garden area.
This new building demonstrates the landscape reflected in the curtain wall facade and the reflection
becomes a design feature in itself, ever changing due to the openable panels and constantly
displaying new images of nature.
This also serves to demonstrate the new significance of nature in urban space.
This building also represents dynamics. While the core of the building may appear rigorous and solid,
this is efficiently contrasted by the curtain wall and the effect is enhanced. The transparent, openable
panels cover the office building in a distinctive slight curve along the main façade, leaving a relatively
generous space in between the two. The façade is through its flexible panels dynamic in itself but
transcend this state through the absorption of nature, the light, the movement and the ever-changing
appearance of the landscape which is reflected in its surface. Through that; the façade of the
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